


Fear of the Dark

by Qille



Series: Dark Magic [4]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Amputation, Blood, Burns, Chaosville, Claustrophobia, M/M, Poison, Race Against Time, Scary, Swearing, graphic description of violent injuries, not a real life story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5749612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qille/pseuds/Qille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After losing most of their supplies in an unfortunate explosion, Strife and Parv are forced to search a nearby volcano for supplies. However, a cave-in traps them inside a dangerous tunnel, and now it's up to Parv to find an escape. It's a race against time and lava and whatever is hiding in the darkness watching them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Explosions

**Author's Note:**

> Although this is in the same series as Void and Flux and Straw, it doesn't really have anything to do with the main stories. This is just kind of an intermission between the main stories. Hope you enjoy.

William Strife was furious. He was so angry that he wasn't even able to shout. Alex Parvis stood in front of him, covered in soot, looking terrified.

“Look, it was an accident!” stammered Parv, his voice faltering as Will glared at him. “I... I mean, I'm sure we can get all the stuff back...”

After a few seconds, Will managed to calm himself down enough to speak. “Every single time, Parvis. Every fucking time, you leave the door open.”

“How was I supposed to know there was a Creeper following me?” exclaimed Parv, trying to shrink away from his friend's glare. He wished Will would put his glasses on, because his glowing green eyes were starting to freak him out more than usual.

Will stared at him for a moment before his eye twitched and he completely lost his shit. He started screaming about how Parv was idiot who was incapable of using doors, and that it was his fault all of their valuable materials had been destroyed in the following explosion.

After a few more minutes of screaming, he calmed down enough to lower his voice. “Parv, go down into the mines and don't come back up until you've replaced everything _you_ lost.”

Parv gulped. He was going to have to tell him eventually, but he had hoped Will would have been in a better mood.

“Well... uh... the thing is...”

Will stared at him, his hands clenched into fists.

“Parv...” he said dangerously.

Parv held up his hands and slowly stepped back. “Well... a couple days ago, I ran into Lalna, and he kinda showed me how to make TNT...”

Will continued to stare at him.

Parv gulped and slowly backed towards the door. “And uh... I kinda wanted to test it out, but I didn't want you to know, and it was taking so long to mine stuff, so.... I uh... I may have caused a cave-in and destroyed our mineshaft...”

Will didn't respond for a moment. Then suddenly, he lunged forward and grabbed Parv by the throat, shaking him until he managed to escape and crawled away, gasping for breath.

Suddenly, Will came up behind him and picked him up, holding him under one arm. Then he carried the kicking and screaming Parv outside and threw him halfway across the lake.

Parv resurfaced a moment later, coughing and sputtering. He looked up and saw that Will had gone back inside.

“Better sleep with one eye open...” Parv muttered to himself.

**XXX**

Parv didn't go back inside that night. He was too afraid that Will would smother him in his sleep, so instead he built a small dirt hut outside and slept in that, using a rock as a pillow.

He woke up to find Will standing over him. He let out a small yelp of fright, but it looked like Will had calmed down enough.

“Get up,” said Will, tossing a bag to Parv. It was heavy, and it hit him right in the stomach. He grimaced and picked up the bag, looking inside. There was some food, water, and mining tools inside. 

“What's going on?” asked Parv, crawling out of his dirt hovel and into the morning sunlight.

“We're gonna go mining,” said Will, grabbing Parv's arm and pulling him to his feet.

“So... are you still mad?”

“I got the whole bed to myself last night, of course I'm not mad,” said Will, cracking a smile.

Parv laughed, relaxing now that Will's bloodlust had worn off.

They walked off into the forest.

**XXX**

“Wow...” muttered Parv, staring up at the enormous volcano that Will had led him to.

“Pretty impressive, right?” said Will. 

“When did you find this?” asked Parv as he and Will began to climb the volcano.

“A few months ago when I first landed,” said Will. “I've been monitoring it for a while, and it's pretty interesting. The lava inside works on a strange cycle, where it rises once every seven days.”

“Is there shiny stuff inside?”

“Yes, there are plenty of ores,” said Will, rolling his eyes.

“So where are we heading?” asked Parv.

“There,” said Will, pointing to a cave entrance about two thirds of the way up the volcano. “That's the entrance to a lava tube that's sure to have plenty of stuff in it.”

They climbed up the rest of the volcano and entered the cave. The inner walls of the lava tube were completely covered in obsidian.

“Wow...” muttered Parv, wandering deeper into the tunnel.

Will's reaction wasn't quite the same. He looked closely at the obsidian and saw that there were long cracks running through the walls and across the ceiling. He recognized it as intense volcanic activity, and as he stared at it, the ground beneath his feet rumbled slightly, and a few pebbles of obsidian fell from the ceiling. 

“Hey Parv,” said Will, “I don't think it's safe here...” When the obsidian was cracking like this, even the smallest tremor could set off a cave in.

Parv didn't respond to him.

Looking forward, Will saw that Parv had moved further into the tunnel, and he was inspecting something on the ceiling.

Because he was staring at the ceiling, he didn't see the Creeper emerge from the hidden hole in the wall. It walked right up and stood next to him.

“Alex!” exclaimed Will, sprinting forward.

Parv heard the Creeper hissing, and he whipped around to find it directly in his face.

Will suddenly lunged forward and shoved Parv out of the way.

The Creeper exploded and flung Will against the wall. 

For a moment, nothing happened. And then the obsidian started to crack, and the ceiling of the tunnel collapsed.


	2. Trapped

Parv coughed and pushed himself up, wiping the dirt out of his eyes. His head was ringing from the explosion, and it had suddenly gotten a lot darker.

Suddenly, he gasped and bolted upright, looking around. He remembered the Creeper, the explosion...

_Will..._

Fumbling in his bag, Parv hurriedly pulled out a torch and looked around, spotting a large pile of obsidian rocks blocking the path back to the tunnel exit.

Running over to the rocks, he started to try and dig through or at least move some of the rocks.

“Will!” he shouted. “Can you hear me?”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he heard a cough from the other side of the wall.

“Alex...?” 

“Will!” exclaimed Parv, pressing his ear against the rocks. Will didn't respond.

Starting to panic, Parv started pulling away bits and pieces of the rocks, cutting his hands open. However, he did manage to pull enough rocks away that he could see through.

“Will!” he exclaimed, finally seeing his friend.

Will was on the ground just on the other side of the obsidian boulders. He looked like he was unconscious; he was pale and covered in dirt and pebbles of obsidian and stone, and half of his face was caked in blood.

Then Parv saw that his left leg was trapped under one of the larger boulders, and there was a pool of blood slowly spreading out from under it.

Panicking when he saw this, Parv managed to get his arm through the hole he had opened and he grabbed Will's shoulder, shaking him a bit and waking him up.

Will gasped and snapped his eyes open, looking dazed. Parv recognized the expression – he had gotten a concussion.

“Will, are you okay?” asked Parv quietly, looking down at his friend.

“My leg...” Will coughed out, looking down at his trapped foot. Then he seemed to come back to his senses, and his eyes widened. “Oh gods, this is not good... Parv, please tell me you've got a diamond pickaxe.”

Parv shook his head. “I thought you had one.”

“I did,” said Will with a grimace as he pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around. “It's in my bag, which is on the other side of _that_.” He gestured to his left, and that was when Parv realized that there were obsidian boulders blocking Will from the cave exit as well. From the looks of it, Will was lucky to have not been crushed.

“What do we do?” asked Parv, feeling his heart racing. Because neither of them had a diamond pickaxe, they couldn't break the obsidian and escape. Even worse, Will's leg was trapped under an obsidian boulder.

Will took a deep breath, trying to focus his scrambled thoughts. Now that his adrenaline was slowly wearing off, he was beginning to feel the pain in his leg, and that – along with his concussion – was making him feel dizzy and nauseous. “Okay Parv, listen carefully,” he stammered. “Y-you have to keep going further down the tunnel and find diamonds.”

“Wait, you want me to go down there? _Alone_?!” exclaimed Parv, looking over his shoulder and deeper into the tunnel, which seemed to drop into pitch darkness almost instantly. He gulped and clutched the torch closer to his chest.

“Yes you have to go down there,” said Will, his voice strained. “Unless... oh shit...”

“What?” exclaimed Parv, looking even more frantic.

“Shit, I just remembered,” stammered Will, his face paling. “Do you remember what I said about the lava in this particular volcano?”

Parv shook his head, his stomach dropping at Will's tone.

Will gulped. “The lava rises and fills these tunnels once every seven days. The last time it did that was four days ago.”

All the color drained from Parv's face. “So in three days, this tunnel is gonna flood with lava...?”

Will gave a small nod, grimacing in pain.

Parv took a deep breath to try and calm himself. “Okay, so I've only got three days to find enough diamonds to make a diamond pickaxe, and if I don't find them we'll both die a horrible fiery death. Right?”

Will nodded again. “And you'll have to go down right near the lava to find diamonds, since the entire tunnel is lined with obsidian.”

Parv gulped. “R-right, okay... okay...” He glanced down at the iron pickaxe in his hand before looking back at Will, who had laid back down.

“Here,” he said, reaching into his bag. He took out most of the food and water he had and gave it to Will.

“Thanks,” said Will, taking the supplies. “Good luck.... oh, and uh... do you think you could leave me one last torch...?”

Parv nodded and handed Will an unlit torch. At least Will was brave enough to admit _his_ fear of the dark.

“Okay,” said Parv, “don't move, I'll be back soon.”

Will didn't even have time to shoot him a glare before he was gone, taking the light of the torch with him and leaving Will alone in the dark.


	3. Day 1

**Day 1**

The darkness was suffocating, and Parv only had a few torches. The one he had lit at the cave entrance was still burning, but only barely. He was holding onto it so hard that some of the wounds on his hands started to bleed again.

When he smelled the blood, he knew he had to calm down and maybe bandage his hands. The blood would attract monsters. He remembered Will telling him that, and he could almost hear him.

Shuddering at the thought of fighting monsters in the dark, he looked around. The flickering light of the torch was casting shadows against the black obsidian walls, tricking his mind into thinking there were things there. He couldn't see far ahead, and he couldn't see far behind. All he could do was keep following the path down towards the center of the volcano and keep an eye out for exposed ores.

The further he went, the hotter it got, and the harder it was to breathe.

His torch was running low, and he would have to light another one soon.

He kept walking, the darkness closing in around him.

**XXX**

Will wasn't in a much better situation. The only reason he wasn't freaking out was because he kept his eyes closed, and he knew that none of the monsters could get to him.

By now, the adrenaline had worn off completely, and his eyes were watering from the pain in his leg. It was so bad that he was shaking, and he could barely breathe. 

Being trapped in an enclosed space didn't really help with that either.

He only had one torch, and he didn't want to light it yet. He wanted to save it for when he needed it. He hoped he wouldn't need it. He hoped Parv would be back within a day with a diamond pickaxe in hand.

Somehow, he knew that wasn't going to happen.

He tried to take a deep breath and calm down. He was tired and dizzy, but he didn't want to let himself sleep yet. He remembered that people with concussions shouldn't sleep for a certain amount of time, but he couldn't remember why. He told himself that as soon as he remembered, it meant that his concussion wasn't as bad as he thought, and he would let himself sleep.

Or he might not have much of a choice. Another wave of pain rain through his leg, and he grimaced and let out a small cry of pain. He opened his eyes, and through the dark he could tell that he was getting tunnel vision. His glowing green eyes let off enough light for him to see his leg, and how badly bloodstained it was. He could tell just from the pain that all of the bones in his foot and lower leg had been crushed.

If Parv didn't return soon, Will was probably going to lose his leg.

Suddenly, from the other side of the boulders, Will heard a growl. He jumped before calming himself down and remembering that the zombies wouldn't be able to reach him.

After another minute, he realized that all the noise was coming from his left, where the boulders blocked the exit of the tunnel. The zombies trying to get to him had come from outside, but he heard no noise coming from inside the tunnel. Did that mean they were all after Parv?

Will took a deep, shuddering breath and laid back down, covering his ears and closing his eyes.

He just hoped Parv was okay.

**XXX**

Parv continued to search. He was certain he was starting to go crazy, because he started hearing Will's voice in his head.

When he heard something moving quickly around, he panicked before Will's voice informed him that it was just a cave bat.

When he found a small spring of water, Will's voice warned him to look at the color before drinking from it.

When he heard footsteps behind him, Will's voice told him to run and hide and wait for the Creeper to pass him.

It was Will's voice in his head that made sure he stayed hydrated and fed and safe.

So when it started to get late and Parv started to get tired, it was Will's voice that suggested he stop and sleep.

Knowing that it wasn't safe on the ground, Parv built himself a small platform a few blocks off the ground. He even added railings so that the spiders and skeletons couldn't get to him. 

As he was building the platform, however, the hairs on the back of his neck kept standing up. He kept glancing over his shoulder to see if anything was there, but there was nothing.

Finally, he climbed up and made a bit of cloth from the string he had gotten from a spiderweb he had walked into. Then he laid it out and curled up, hoping that Will was okay.

As he fell asleep, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched...


	4. Stone and Claws

**Day 2**

When Will woke up the next morning, it was hard for him to breathe. He was confused and dizzy and nauseous, and his whole body was aching. His thoughts were slippery, and he couldn't focus. It took him a while to focus his vision. Once he did, however, he realized there was enough light streaming through the cracks in the rocks to see by.

He propped himself upright with a grimace. He could tell it was early, and he was glad that he had been able to wake up at all. However, he was shivering and his heart was racing. He knew he had a fever.

There was just enough light for him to see by, so he painfully sat upright and reached down towards his leg. His pant leg had been torn when the boulder fell on his leg. Pulling it back, he saw red streaks running up his leg. The sign of an infection.

“Shit...” muttered Will, running his hand through his blood crusted hair. He noticed in the back of his mind that his glasses were gone, probably under one of the boulders.

Struggling to focus, he ripped a strip of fabric off of his shirt and tied it around his knee to act as a tourniquet and hopefully prevent the infection from spreading further. He was worried that he couldn't feel his leg anymore.

After he finished tying his leg, he took off his vest and folded it up, then he laid back down with the vest under his head.

His time was running out and he knew it.

He just hoped Parv hurried.

**XXX**

When Parv woke up that morning he noticed a few things were different. First of all, the air was so much hotter. There were also a couple drips of lava coming from the ceiling of the tunnel.

There was also something different.

Will's glasses were sitting next to him.

He froze, staring at the glasses. He knew for a fact that he hadn't picked them up after the cave in. He hadn't even seen them.

Someone... or _something_ had been here. He was being followed.

His hand shaking, he reached out and grabbed the glasses, inspecting them closely. One lens was broken, and the other had three long scratches on it. 

Whatever was following him was clearly dangerous.

With a gulp, he put the glasses in his bag and pulled out a fresh torch, seeing as the one he had been using to keep the monsters away while he slept was almost completely burnt out. Then, after checking down both ends of the tunnel as far as he could see and making sure nothing was there, he carefully climbed down from the small platform he had made.

The air was so still and thick and hot. He had drank the last of his water last night, so the heat was already draining him dry, and the symptoms of dehydration were starting to set in. This was bad; he needed to stay focused if he wanted to get them both out of this volcano alive.

He started to walk forward down the tunnel, his iron pickaxe in hand. The tunnel was sloping down at a steeper angle, and further on Parv could just barely see the bright orange glow of lava. He just hoped it was an opening. If it was the end of the tunnel, then they were dead.

That was when he heard a noise behind him.

Whipping around and wielding his pickaxe as a weapon, he searched for the cause of the strange scuffling and scratching noise.

Then he looked up.

There was something moving on the platform he had been sleeping on. Whatever it was was large and dark. He had never seen anything like it before.

Then the creature looked up at him with glowing red eyes.

Parv turned and ran down the tunnel as fast as he could. After a few minutes, he stopped and listened. He didn't hear anything following him. The only thing he could hear was the sound of lava bubbling nearby.

Speaking of lava, the air down here was boiling, and the orange glow was so bright he didn't need the torch anymore.

Glancing over his shoulder again, he realized that it was now too dark back in the tunnel for him to see if there was anything sneaking up on him.

He had to get into the light, where it was somewhat safer. Even if that light was coming from the lava that would kill them if they didn't escape in time.

A moment later, he reached the source of the lava, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The tunnel opened up into a massive underground crevice. However, there was a problem. The entire floor of the cavern was covered in churning bubbling lava. Normally the lava wouldn't be this high, but it was rising. And it had risen above the level at which he would be able to find diamonds. He couldn't go down there, because the lava was rising too fast. He would find diamonds after digging through the walls, maybe, but the lava would have surely risen too high for him to escape afterward. He had to find a faster way to get diamonds.

Then he noticed something.

Halfway along the wall of the crevice, a few blocks higher than the tunnel, was the entrance to a mineshaft.

Parv didn't have time to decide if it was safe or not. The creature in the tunnel behind him decided for him.

The scuffling and growling noises suddenly appeared, and Parv whipped around. It wasn't on him yet, but it was coming.

As fast as he dared, he quickly pulled out some blocks and built along the wall of the crevice, towards the mineshaft entrance.

He reached the entrance to the tunnel as soon as the creature reached the exit of the other tunnel.

Parv held his breath and watched from around the corner as the creature looked around. It obviously didn't notice the cobblestone path he had built.

Now that it was in the light, he could get a good look at it. It was a bit smaller than it had seemed in the dark. It had a stout body with long arms and massive claws. It looked like it was wearing a mask made from a skeleton's skull, and it had a cloak made of what looked like fur, but much darker and more coarse than the fur of any animal Parv had ever seen. Maybe it was werewolf fur? He had heard that werewolves sometimes wandered into caves and got lost.

Parv held his breath for what seemed like hours. Then, _finally_ , the creature turned away and dashed back into the tunnel.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Parv turned and looked down the tunnel. There were a few torches scattered along the wall, providing light. 

With a gulp, Parv put away his pickaxe and pulled out his sword. Then, becoming more and more dizzy from dehydration, he moved deeper into the mineshaft.

**XXX**

It took him nearly fifteen minutes to find a chest. Inside he didn't find anything valuable except a bit of food and water. At least that helped a bit with his dehydration.

He continued to wander around, making sure to always mark where he had and hadn't been, and where the exit was so he could get back to Will.

None of the chests he found had diamonds in them. Maybe that was because they were all easy to get to.

That was when he saw the cobwebs. There was a mess of them stringing all across the dark corridor. He could hear spiders, but beyond the webs he could see a chest.

With a gulp, he began cutting through the webs.

He was about halfway through when he was attacked from behind. A spider jumped down from the ceiling and latched onto his back. With a sharp scream, he whipped around and sliced it open. Breathing hard from the scare, he looked up.

There was a spawner on the ceiling, and a horde of cave spiders was spilling from it.

Panicking, Parv threw a torch up, and it stuck in the bars of the spawner, stopping more spiders from coming. He still had to deal with the ones coming at him now.

Several fell down at him at once, and while he was trying to fend them off, he fell backwards into the cobwebs.

He frantically started swiping at the spiders to try and get them away from him, but one of them sank it's fangs into his leg. He let out a cry of pain and managed to pull his arm further free from the webs, giving him the mobility to finish off the spiders.

Turning, he cut himself free from the webs, and he used a wad of the sticky string to cover the bite on his leg and prevent it from bleeding and attracting more monsters.

He quickly stood up and started to hack his way back towards the chest when he started to feel dizzy. It was much more intense than the dehydration dizziness he had felt before. A moment later, his head began throbbing, and there was suddenly a pain in his stomach so intense that he nearly doubled over.

In that moment, he remembered Will telling him that cave spiders were poisonous.

“Oh shit...” muttered Parv, glancing down at his leg and the bloody cobwebs stuck to it. He forced himself upright and kept slicing away the webs until he reached the chest. Dropping to his knees, he opened the chest and looked inside.

What he saw nearly made his heart stop.

Diamonds. Two of them. He reached into the chest and pulled them out and stared at them for a minute before quickly putting them in his bag. He only needed one more. He only needed one more diamond and he could save Will.

Parv dizzily stumbled to his feet and leaned against the wall, trying to remember how long Will said the poison lasted. It had to wear off soon. He had to find another diamond.

After a moment, he started coughing up blood.

He knew he couldn't stay still for long. Even though he could barely stand upright, he had to keep moving.

Stumbling upright, he started to stagger down the corridor.

_Just one more diamond..._ he kept telling himself. _One more... one more..._

Because he was delirious from the poison, he didn't hear the scuffling and growling coming from directly behind him until it was too late.

Something tackled him from behind and pinned him to the ground. He flipped over and tried to slash at his attacker with his sword, but he was too weak from the poison to do anything. The creature pinned him down, it's glowing red eyes staring at him from behind the skeleton's skull. 

The creature raised a clawed hand and struck him across the head. He felt blood pouring down his face, and a moment later, everything turned black.


	5. Run For Your Life

**Day 3**

This wasn't the first time Parv woke up with his hands tied behind his back, but it was the first time he didn't remember how he got that way.

With a groan, Parv slowly blinked his eyes open and lifted his head, which felt like it weighed three times as much as normal. His vision was slightly distorted from the pain in his skull.

It took a moment, but his surroundings finally came into focus. He was in what looked like part of a mineshaft. There were a few torches scattered around. The walls were covered in spiderwebs. 

Slowly, he began to remember what happened. He had been fighting off some cave spiders, and one of them bit him and poisoned him. Because he had been distracted by the effects of the poison, he hadn't heard one of the creatures from the cave sneaking up on him until it attacked him.

That was why his head hurt so much. The creature had pounced on him and sliced it open.

Suddenly, with a stab of panic, he realized something. The thing that had kidnapped him had taken all of his gear, including the two diamonds he found.

He also realized just how hot it was. He knew it wouldn't be long before the volcano erupted. In fact, he could occasionally feel small tremors run through the rocks beneath him.

That was when he heard the scratching and sniffing and growling noises again. He froze, and a moment later a part of the wall in front of him slid away, revealing a hidden door.

The door opened, and three of the creatures lumbered out, coming towards him. None of them were wearing their skull masks or werewolf fur cloaks, so Parv could see that they were actually stone cave golems, the same color as the rocks around them. They weren't very large, and had it not been for the red eyes and fangs and razor sharp talons, they would have looked harmless.

Two of them grabbed Parv and pulled him to his feet. He stumbled and nearly vomited, nauseous from the pain in his head. The golems kept him upright though. Then they started to drag him through the door they had come from.

Just before they reached the door, however, the ground beneath them shook so violently it made Parv's bones rattle.

The golems also seemed shocked by this. They were so shocked they let go of him.

Knowing this was his only chance at escape, he quickly turned his back to one and fell towards it. The golem put one claw on his back and one claw on his bound arms to keep him from falling.

As soon as Parv felt the golem grab his arms, he quickly sprung forward and jerked his arms upward. The golem's sharp talons sliced through the binds.

Whipping around as fast as his injuries would allow, Parv grabbed the nearest weapon, which happened to be a dagger strapped to one of the golem's backs. Then he stabbed two of the golems in the throat before they even knew what was going on.

The third one put up more of a fight. It lunged at Parv and tried to knock him backwards, but he managed to stumble to the side and avoid the creature. It slammed into the wall, and Parv stabbed it through the spine.

Breathing hard, Parv reached up to feel the wound on his head, but he found it to be plastered with spiderwebs, just like his wounded leg and hands. He could feel that half of his face was crusted with blood however. He was also no longer severely dehydrated – they must have forced him to swallow some water while he was unconscious. At least... he hoped it was water.

Quickly glancing down the tunnel, he could see a path of torches that he had left while exploring the day before. He knew that was the way out. He started to turn towards it, but then he stopped.

He still needed those three diamonds to rescue Will. Without those diamonds, they would both die when the lava rises.

Taking a deep breath to steel his nerves, Parv turned and walked through the doorway, deeper into the mountain. 

Almost immediately, the tunnel plunged into darkness, and he stopped, paralyzed in fear. He tried to listen for the creatures, but he couldn't hear anything over his ragged breathing and the painfully loud hammering of his heart in his ears.

_Okay, just calm down,_ Parv thought to himself. He had to get a grip, so he quickly backed up back into the light outside the doorway.

He needed to calm down. He needed to focus.

He thought of Will. That was the reason he needed to calm down and face his fear of the dark. Will was in trouble, and he needed his help.

Parv slowly stepped back into the darkness again, keeping his hand against the wall.

He kept thinking of Will. If he were with him, his eyes would be glowing bright green like they always did. They would be bright enough to chase away the darkness.

With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and found Will's glasses. The creatures hadn't taken them away.

He wasn't going to let them take Will away from him.

His heart slowed to normal, and his breathing became steady. His fear was replaced with determination, and he took his hand off the wall and ran forward into the darkness that he no longer feared.

He emerged a moment later into a large room. Staying hidden in the shadows along the wall, he saw that there were several more golems lurking around.

Before he could even begin to plan a way to get past them, the volcano began to shake again. A crack appeared in the wall to his far right, close to where most of the golems were. Suddenly, the rock fell away and lava began to pour into the room.

All the golems quickly ran towards the breach and began to seal it – they seemed to be made out of rock, immune to the lava.

While they were distracted, Parv looked around and spotted another door, which had been left ajar. Inside he could see a chest.

Glancing one more time to make sure the golems were occupied, he silently dashed forward and through the door. He quickly rummaged through the chest, but found none of his stuff.

Then he looked up and realized that the room he was in was full of chests. He quickly went through a few of them, discovering that a lot of them were filled with cobblestone and dirt and obsidian.

And then he found his stuff. His sword, his pickaxe, and the two diamonds he had found.

Now all he needed was one more.

And there was one more chest at the very end of the room.

A split second later, the wall in front of him collapsed and lava spilled all over the floor, blocking his way to the chest.

Before he could start swearing at the top of his lungs, he realized something. This room didn't seem to have been built as carefully as the one before. The floor and walls and ceiling were all completely uneven and grooved. The floor had large grooves and several raised spots.

Some of the spots were higher than the lava.

“Oh great...” muttered Parv. “Parkour.”

Then, without hesitation, he took a running start and jumped for the closest raised block of stone.

Bad idea.

He barely landed on the stone, and when he did land, he had to drop to his hands and knees to keep from plummeting off head-first into the lava. He had forgotten for a moment that he had a head injury and that his balance and dexterity was negligible. 

He took a moment to catch his breath and test his balance. It didn't matter if he was injured. He needed to do this.

There were only three more jumps until he reached the chest, which was luckily on a raised platform above the lava.

Parv took a deep breath and steadied himself before jumping to the next one. He landed much easier. The next one he could step to.

Then came the final jump. This was was further than the rest.

The volcano started to shake again. Parv knew it was about to erupt. He had run out of time.

He lunged forward and almost landed on the rock. For just a split second, his left foot dipped down close enough to the lava to set his shoe and pant leg on fire.

In one quick, panicked move, Parv turned and swatted out the fire, but it had already done damage. His foot and the lower half of his leg had been burnt, and blisters were appearing. When he tried to put pressure on his leg, he nearly collapsed, clamping his hand over his mouth to keep from crying out in pain.

Dropping to his knees, he reached forward and opened the chest.

His heart nearly stopped.

Sitting inside the chest, along with a pile of sticks, was a single diamond.

He had his three diamonds now. He could save Will.

He quickly stored the precious diamond away with the other two. Then he turned around...

...and got hit in the shoulder by an arrow.

The golems had found him.

They started to trudge through the lava to get to him. The one with the bow was notching another arrow into place.

His mind in overdrive and his eyes blurry from the new source of pain in his shoulder, he looked up. The ceiling was riddled with cracks, especially above the golem with the bow.

Thankful that the arrow had hit his left shoulder instead of his right, Parv took the dagger he had stolen from the other golem, and he threw it with all the strength he had left. It stuck in one of the cracks in the ceiling for a moment. And then something else happened.

A bit of boiling hot water started to drip down from the ceiling. And then the rocks collapsed and the small reservoir of water that had been trapped there was released. The rocks crushed the golem with the bow, and the water rushed down over the lava, turning it to obsidian. Parv quickly jumped up onto the chest to avoid being splashed by the scalding hot water. The steam it released left a couple red marks on his arms however.

Blinking and gasping from the rush of heat, Parv opened his eyes to find that all of the golems that had been in the lava were now trapped, stuck in the obsidian.

Parv grinned smugly as he watched them struggle. Then, after another moment of making sure they were all good and stuck, he reached up and painfully pulled the arrow from his shoulder. Then he stepped down onto the obsidian and quickly limped out the door.

He saw that the ceiling of the cave was starting to collapse. With as much strength as he could conjure, he speed-limped out of the room and through the small tunnel. He didn't even stop and turn when he heard the cave behind him collapse.

He kept running. When he reached the mineshaft, he turned and ran for the exit. The lava in the chasm was so much higher. In minutes, it would reach the tunnel and begin to fill it.

He was out of time.

Turning, he ran back up the tunnel towards Will, the lava following him.

**XXX**

Will was in an ungodly amount of pain. He was nauseous and sick and feverish, and the heat was just making it worse. The aching feeling seemed to be emanating from his bones. His whole body was filled with it.

Except for his lower left leg, which no longer had any feeling.

It was when he realized that that Will finally lit the single torch Parv had left him with. He stuck it in the rocks and pulled back his pant leg to inspect his crushed foot and leg.

It didn't even surprise him to see that his leg had turned black with gangrene, almost all the way up to his knee.

He ripped another piece of his shirt off and tied a second tourniquet around his leg, lower than the first. He knew that when his leg was freed – _if_ his leg was freed – it would release all the blood clots that had certainly formed. The tourniquets would hopefully slow them down long enough for them to find help, because if even a single blood clot got into his heart or lungs, it would only take minutes to kill him.

Will was a bit disturbed by how clinical he was, determining what would kill him first if the lava didn't.

Another violent tremor shook the ground. He flinched. Every time one of the tremors hit, there was always the risk of one of the boulders being knocked loose and crushing him.

Then he felt a sudden swell of heat, coming from the tunnel. He felt his heart stop. The lava was rising.

And then he heard footsteps. Uneven, stumbling footsteps.

“Will!” exclaimed an out of breath voice.

“Alex!” exclaimed Will, sitting up and looking through the gap in the boulders with renewed energy.

“I got the diamonds Will,” gasped Parv. “I'm getting you out.”

Then Parv turned and ripped the spiderwebs off of his palm. The wounds were still fresh. He bit his hand, restarting the flow of blood. Then he quickly knelt down and drew a crafting grid on the ground in his own blood.

He quickly lined up the diamonds and sticks and crafted a diamond pickaxe.

He stood up, ignoring the pain in his hands, shoulder, and leg, and he quickly smashed through the obsidian between himself and Will.

“These first,” stammered Will, pointing to the boulders blocking the exit. He wanted to make sure Parv had an escape if they weren't able to get him out on time.

The heat was intensifying.

Then Will looked back into the tunnel, which was suddenly glowing orange.

“Alex...” he gulped.

Parv finished clearing away the boulders blocking their exit before turning back.

The lava was only fifteen meters away and closing in fast.

They were out of time.

He saw that Will was looking at the lava.

Shaking his head a bit, he clutched the pickaxe tightly in his bloody hands and swung it with every ounce of strength he had left.

The boulder Will's leg was trapped under cracked in half, and his bloody mutilated leg was freed.

Will let out a bloodcurdling scream as the pain returned instantly to his leg. Parv nearly felt his heart stop, but he didn't have time to make sure Will was okay. The lava was only meters away.

Parv quickly bent down and picked Will up, doing his best to ignore the burning pain in his shoulder and leg. Then he turned and ran towards the exit.

A split second later, they burst out of the tunnel and into the daylight. 

Wasting no time, Parv turned and carried Will over to a raised section of rock. They barely made it. A split second later, lava gushed out of all the tunnels, covering most of the volcano. But they were safe. For now.

Parv gently laid Will down and knelt next to him. Will's skin was dead pale, and his breathing was labored. He was convulsing slightly.

“Will!” exclaimed Parv, his voice panicky. “Will, what is it? What's wrong?”

“My leg...” grimaced Will, his voice tight.

Parv actually yelped in shock when he saw how bad Will's leg was.

“Holy shit, what do I do...” stammered Parv.

“Just cut my fucking leg off...” gasped Will. Suddenly, he cried out in pain, clutching his chest.

And then he stopped screaming. His eyes went wide and his mouth was slightly open. He started gasping for breath.

Parv had no idea what was happening to him – it looked like he was having an asthma attack, but much more severe.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Parv saw two figures at the base of the volcano, just beyond where the lava stopped flowing.

Standing up, Parv started frantically waving to them. He got their attention, and they waved back. Then they started to run towards him. For a second, he was worried that they would get burnt by the lava, but when they got near it, it instantly froze into obsidian. They both started to run up the volcano towards them, creating a path of obsidian in front of them.

A few seconds later, when they were closer, Parv realized that it was Lalna and Sjin. They were both using some sort of magic to freeze the lava into obsidian.

A second later, they reached them.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” exclaimed Lalna, kneeling down next to Will.

“Long story,” stammered Parv. “Will needs help.”

“I think you both need help,” said Sjin, his eyes wide.

“C'mon, we've gotta get you guys out of here,” said Lalna, carefully picking up Will, who was now unresponsive. Parv noticed that his lips were turning blue.

Sjin quickly froze more of the lava and made a better path for the others. Then they ran down the path and away from the volcano with Parv stumbling along behind them.

“This way,” said Sjin as they entered the forested area past the base of the volcano. “We've got a base close by.”

Only a minute later, they arrived at a large building. Sjin ran forward and opened the door. Lalna carried Will inside and laid him on a table. He and Sjin quickly got to work, leaving Parv to stand and stare, not knowing what to do. 

A second later, they had brought out several machines and tools and bottles of mysterious chemicals that Parv knew nothing about. One of them put an oxygen mask on Will, and it looked like he was starting to breathe again.

Then Lalna cut away the lower half of Will's pant leg, allowing them all to see the damage.

Parv nearly threw up. The skin below his knee was completely black, and his foot was nothing but a mess of flesh and bones, unrecognizable. His shin looked like it had been flattened, and it looked like the back of his leg had popped. There were bits of flesh falling off and a few pieces of bone sticking through his skin in different places.

“Oh boy...” muttered Lalna, putting on his goggles, along with a surgical mask and gloves. Parv noticed in the back of his mind that he even put a glove on his mechanical hand.

A second later, Sjin appeared in front of Parv, and he found himself being led out of the room.

“Is Will gonna be okay?” asked Parv, suddenly feeling exhausted as the past three days of stress and pain caught up with him.

“Of course he is,” said Sjin reassuringly as he led Parv into a smaller room with a few chairs and a bed. “Lalna's amputated more limbs than I care to admit. And he's also really good at building new ones. After I lost my leg, he built me a new mechanical one within 24 hours.” When he said this, he pulled his pant leg up a bit, and Parv caught a glimpse of silver.

As he spoke, he sat Parv down in one of the chairs and began using a wet cloth to clean off the dirt and spiderwebs.

“So do you want to tell me what happened?” asked Sjin as he got the spiderwebs out of Parv's hair and began to bandage the wounds on his head.

“Will and I went to the volcano... just to explore...” said Parv, suddenly feeling incredibly lethargic. “There was a Creeper, and it caused a cave in... Will's leg got trapped under an obsidian boulder, and the exit was blocked, so I had to go deeper into the volcano and look for diamonds to break the obsidian.”

“How did you hurt your head?” asked Sjin. He had moved on to cleaning and bandaging Parv's cut hands and burnt arms.

“There were these weird cave golems, and they attacked me,” said Parv, feeling the pain in his shoulder from the arrow wound. He grimaced and carefully pulled his shirt off so Sjin could take a look at the wound.

“Now what happened here?” asked Sjin, cleaning the wound and preparing more gauze.

“One of them shot me when I snuck into their base,” said Parv, now struggling to keep his eyes open and keep up the conversation. It was distracting him from the pain, and also from thinking of Will.

“Why were you in their base?” asked Sjin.

“They took my stuff, and I had to get the diamonds. I actually had to do a bit of lava parkour to get the last one, but I kinda got burnt.”

“I'll say,” said Sjin as he cut away the burnt section of Parv's pant leg. He also cut his shoe off and found that his foot, along with part of his leg, was covered in blisters. “How were you even walking on this?” he asked as he put some sort of medicine on it and started to bandage it.

Parv grimaced a bit, but the medicine quickly numbed the pain.

“Any other injuries?” asked Sjin, holding up the bandages.

Parv shook his head, struggling to keep his eyes focused. A second later, however, he realized he must have zoned out, because he found himself lying in the bed. A blanket had been thrown over him, and an extra pillow had been placed under his foot to keep it elevated. There was a cool cloth on his forehead.

A second later, he was asleep.

**XXX**

When Will woke up, he wasn't in pain, which was a relief. Not only did his leg no longer hurt, but he could breathe again.

He was, however, a bit confused as to where he was. It took him a few minuets to realize that he was back home. However, he had no memory of coming back. The last thing he remembered was at the volcano, when he told Parv to cut his leg off. Then the sudden pain in his chest had taken all of the memories afterward away.

Glancing down, Will tried to move his left leg. He saw the blankets move, but he didn't feel his leg move.

Painstakingly pulling the blankets away, he saw that his left leg was gone, replaced with a mechanical one. The fact that his leg was gone didn't surprise or bother him – he was never very sentimental about flesh anyways. It was that he didn't know where the new limb had come from, or who had amputated his infected leg.

He didn't have long to wonder, because a few seconds later, the door opened and Parv came in. He gasped when he saw that Will was awake, and he ran over to the bed and threw his arms around Will, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Will! You're okay!” he exclaimed.

“I will be if you don't beak a rib,” stammered Will.

“Right, sorry,” said Parv, letting go. “So how do you feel?”

“Better,” said Will. “So what happened?”

“Okay,” said Parv, coming around to the other side of the bed and sitting down next to him, “well you've been unconscious for about three weeks. Not sure if you remember or not, but Lalna and Sjin found us on the volcano and saved your life.”

“Is that where the leg came from?” asked Will.

Parv nodded. “Do you like it?”

“It'll work,” said Will nonchalantly.

“Good,” he said. “But Will, I've got a story to tell you.”

Will smiled. “Oh really?” he asked, tiredly leaning his head against Parv's shoulder.

Parv nodded. “Yes. The story of how I found three diamonds and saved your ass.”

So Parv launched into his story, and Will lay there and listened, enjoying the sound of Parv's voice, which he thought he would never hear again.

Parv continued to talk about how he was no longer scared of the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Filler stories are fun. Now back to the main plotline!


End file.
